Presentation Workshop

Time reserved for brainstorming and troubleshooting the creative term presentations. Post an update and let me know if I can offer you any technical help.

Here are the project suggestions that appeared in the instructions for section 6 of the presubmission report:

A video lecture in which you engage the class in a discussion about your chosen topic.

A narrrated playthrough of an important event in
a game. Can you freeze-frame and zoom in on important details, and
interview the participants about why the event was significant?

I used to joke that your presentation could include interpretive dance if you want.
In Fall 2009, some students in my literature class did, in fact, dance
several different potential interpretations of important scenes from
the literary works. Their presentation was fantastic, because they
didn't simply summarize the plot, they carefully chose two or three
different but valid ways to interpret each scene, and that made the
class think about which interpretation they preferred, and why. (I wish
I had a video of their work! Obviously, if you choose this option,
you'll need to record it and share it, at least within the class.)

You could design your own game,
and make a video with paper cutouts on Popsicle sticks, or LEGOS, or
sock puppets. The game proposal should serve the academic point you
want to make, rather than demonstrate your ability to follow industry
trends, or your confidence that the world is full of fools and that one
day you will crush them all.

Update, 19 Jan: I'd like to see enough material that would fill about a 10-15 minute in-class presentation. It should be related to the research you're doing for your term project; my hope is that working on this project will actually help you revise your paper. But please, do not just read from your paper into a camera or microphone.

In various e-mail exchanges with students, among the suggestions I have made or approved include:

A YouTube video (showing gameplay with your commentary; it doesn't need to be as fancy as the IF videos I made with Peter -- you could do it in the style of the Civlization III and TimezAttack videos, instead.)

A podcast (along the lines of the "What is Fun?" audio clip from earlier in the term).

A simple Scratch game, or a series of games that illustrate various issues from the course (there's a passage in the Scratch tutorial where I make the ball say "You killed me!" when you lose a point, and then I change it to say "Let's try again!" Even while I was making the video, I was surprised at the effect of making my creation talk to me like that.)

A simple interactive fiction game that illustrates a point you want to make. (Those of you with the skills to do this, you already know who you are.)

I am open to suggestions. Be creative; demonstrate your ability to apply what you learned; support a specific, non-obvious argument, rather than just listing interesting things you've found about cool stuff.

Create a web page that links to all your resources, with a brief "how to" that mentions any special tools or techniques you used, or any particular difficulties you're proud of overcoming.

In copyright law, the "Fair Use" defense means that if you copy or alter someone else's copyrighted material, and they sue you for it, you can defend yourself by saying your use is not copyright infringement when:

* your reuse does not hurt the copyright holder financially
* you used only a small portion of the copyrighted material
* you are using the material for the purpose of study or critique, and/or
* you are creatively re-using the material for the purpose of parody

Technically, anyone can sue anybody, for any reason -- the constitution does not protect us from frivolous lawsuits. But a jury is not likely to award a financial payment for a student using a screenshot or audio clip in a class project.

For academic purposes, you should always cite your source of any material from an outside source, whether copyrighted or not.